I thought today I’d dedicate a few lines to my favourite short film of all-time, Claude Lelouche‘s 1976 high-speed masterpiece, C’était un Rendezvous. The film is only 8 minutes and 38 seconds long, but if you love cars like I love cars, it’s one for the best films out there.
The premise of the film is simple. A camera is mounted to the front of a car and the audience is given a front row, drivers point of view as an unknown man takes to the streets of Paris just before dawn, and drives fast (and I mean really fast), through the city streets just as Paris is beginning to stir, to finally reach a street in Montmartre where we find a lovely blond woman waiting for him. Hence the title, “It was a date.” Of course what makes the film exciting isn’t the plot, it’s watching the streets of Paris whiz by at breakneck speed as the anonymous driver handles the car beautifully through every dangerous curve he encounters. It’s 8 and a half minutes of adrenaline, screaming engine, squealing tires, great driving, and beautiful scenery. Here’s a clip, showing the last 2 minutes of the film…
After seeing this movie for the first time, I had all the questions one would expect. Who was driving that car?! What kind of a car was it? Did they block the streets or did they really just go for it, outlaw style? Now we know all of the answers. Although it was rumoured at the time that one of several Formula 1 drivers had been hired for the film, it was in fact Lelouch himself behind the wheel. The car used for the film was Lelouch’s own Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9, but the engine sound was overdubbed. Lelouch reran the course later in his Ferrari 275GTB, and this is what you hear in the film. In the “making of” documentary about the film, Lelouch explains that the Mercedes had the superior suspension, and thus provided the necessary stability for the mounted camera. However, the Mercedes was a 3-speed automatic and had a much less dramatic sound. The Ferrari was a 5-speed V-12, so when Lelouch reran the course he was able to provide a dramatic soundtrack much more in keeping with the experience on film, running through all of the gears all the way up to 5th, with raucous high revving heel and toe downshifts, and long sensual increasing growls as the engine started racing again, fully exploiting the highs and lows of the beautiful Ferrari sound. As an aside, one really has to hand it to Ferrari. Nobody has ever managed to come close in the aesthetics of sound department as far as engines are concerned. For decades, they’ve been able to produce an engine whose sound is complex and rich, able to maintain hints of its intimidating low RPM grumble even as the engine screams at high RPM’s. Phil Spector couldn’t layer it better.
But on to the final question – how did they do this? According to Lelouch, it was a spur of the minute decision. He had the idea the night before, called in his two closest assistants, rigged the car, and just before dawn let the camera roll and put the pedal to the metal. No permits, no permission, no traffic blockers. He has said that there was one totally blind intersection where they had a spotter with a walkie-talkie to wave him off if a car was coming, but that’s it. Furthermore, apparently the walkie-talkie quit on the spotter! Completely insane, especially as he was frequently reaching speeds between 85 and 125mph in the city. If you’ve never driven that fast in close quarters, let me tell you… It is insanely fast and insanely dangerous. Every micromovement of the wheel causes big reactions in the car. Lelouch has said himself that it was largely an act of youthful arrogance, and that he was of course aware of the risks involved, willing to call it off if a pedestrian or other obstacle appeared out of nowhere. What you have to keep in mind is that in that context, at those speeds, “calling it off” would most likely mean crashing at high speed into some inanimate object, likely killing himself and the two crew members also strapped into the car. Here’s a bit of the making of video to see for yourself…
So in conclusion, nuts, nuts, crazy, and nuts. But soooo good. Lelouch deserves as much credit for his driving as he got criticism for his recklessness (rumours have suggested he was arrested after the initial screening of the film), and as a piece of film it holds up, largely due to the final couple of seconds, where this manic race through Paris is revealed to have been because of the drivers desire to get to his girlfriend. A rather beautiful metaphor for the urgency and intensity of a love affair. Leave it to the French guy!
If you ever get a chance to see C’était un Rendezvous in the theatre, I heartily recommend it. Otherwise, it is a great buy on DVD, available on Amazon.
Bonus – If you’d like to hear some more nicely recorded engines going at it full bore, Ralph Lauren has provided links to some recordings of the cars in his magnificent collection here. Happy motoring.
